


All the roads (lead back to you)

by salakavala



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, As slow as it can be with mini chapters, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, No Infinity War or Endgame happens, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Sibling Incest, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2020-06-10 04:35:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19492591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salakavala/pseuds/salakavala
Summary: "Wait," Banner interjects. "If the Tesseract was destroyed with Asgard, there's no way Thanos can fulfill his plan, right?""Unless," Natasha says slowly, her gaze shifting to Thor, "the Tesseract wasn't destroyed."





	1. Away

Sometimes, little moments define entire futures, lifetimes. One such moment was when Odin saw an abandoned babe on a freezing rock in Jotunheim. Another, when a Frost Giant grabbed Loki's forearm on that ill-fated trip to Utgard, or when Loki lowered Surtur's crown into the Eternal Flame, thus calling forth Ragnarök and sealing the destruction of Asgard.

And one such moment is this: Thor's hesitation, when Loki passes him a jug of water in the mess hall on the Statesman.

Such a fleeting moment, blink-and-it's-gone, but Loki notices. And just like that, the future he has cautiously begun envisioning for himself – for them – is uprooted and tossed away.

His brother doesn't trust him. It's not even-- Thor doesn't _trust_ him.

Loki doesn't make a fuss. Pretends he didn't see. Quips something inconsequential at Valkyrie, rolls his eyes at Thor's joke, and, after a sufficient amount of time has passed, he gets up, excuses himself, and leaves.

He doesn't go to his bedroom, unlike he told the others. Instead, he walks past it, into the depths of the Statesman, where the Commodore sleeps.

He has no place on this ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I plan to keep all the chapters about this length, give or take, but we'll see how it goes in reality.  
> The story title is from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaoOlSPiAWQ).
> 
> Thank you for reading! Any thoughts are always appreciated. <3


	2. Anchored

They are doing well, considering.

Their settlement is little more than a cluster of wooden huts scattered around the Statesman, but it will serve them well enough until the ship's repairs and fortifications are finished. The work is giving the people a distraction, too; something to do with their hands and a sense of purpose, the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of their efforts. Roots, however temporary, to keep them grounded after everything they ever knew was torn apart between Surtur's flames and Hela's madness.

The work on the ship will no doubt take a while; skilled though the princess Shuri of Wakanda and Tony Stark are, they have little experience in intergalactic travel, and both are as eager to examine and learn as they are to repair and fortify. Thor doesn't mind. For his people it makes little difference, whether the work will take a few months or a few years. Besides, it's not yet decided where the Statesman will head, once everything is ready. The universe is vast and there are countless worlds – but, for now, their ship is all they have to call home.

They should rename it, Thor thinks, before they take off again. It's no longer a mere refugee ship, stolen from a madman; it contains Asgard, all that remains of her. The old name serves no purpose to them. It's foreign, cold, other. They need a name that is _theirs_.

But Thor has never been the one with the clever ideas.

He leaves the growing village behind and heads out to the cliffs, where Heimdall is standing watch against the salty winds and the rush of waves against the rocks down, down below. With his sword in his hands the ancient gatekeeper looks a strange reflection of his old self – a man, instead of the statue in golden armour that he once used to be.

Thor stops at his side. For a few long moments they simply stand in silence, listening to the sea and the gulls, until Heimdall turns and nods to Thor. “Asgard is doing well,” he says by the way of greeting. “They have hope, now. A new king, and a new future. You have done well.”

He looks back to the horizon, where Father, not so long ago, said he heard Mother calling.

“This place has brought the people some measure of peace.”

Thor only hums in response. He lets his eye travel from the village to the grass-covered cliffs, to the ocean, and to where the horizon blends with grey clouds. He breathes in the serenity and the vibrant silence, closes his eyes. On days like this, he half thinks he can hear the echo of Mother's voice, too.

He turns away from the thought. A measure of peace, Heimdall said – yet Thor hasn't found it. Something keeps missing.

He shakes that thought off, too. “What do you see?”

Heimdall's golden gaze turns to the edge of the sea, and beyond. “A universe without end. Stars dying. Stars being born.”

He says, softer, “I do not see him.”

The cliff crumbles beneath Thor's feet, and though it instantly reconsolidates, his insides plummet either way. He looks away, clenches his jaw and his fists against the flare of hurt and anger. “I didn't ask.”

Has learnt not to.

“You forget that my gift is seeing, my king. Not hearing.” Heimdall places a heavy hand on Thor's shoulder, squeezes firmly. “Thor -”

He halts, turns his eyes back to the horizon. They grow eerily distant – his brows furrow slightly.

A lick if dread and hope touches Thor's heart. “What is it? Do you see-- something?”

“Yes,” Heimdall replies. His grip tightens on his sword.

“War.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My noble intention was to update once a week. But, you all know what happens to noble intentions. I'm doing my best. ❤️


	3. Attack

The fight is swift and cruel.

If it weren't for Heimdall, the Avengers would have been caught entirely unaware by the ones who call themselves the children of Thanos. As it is, they knew to expect something –

and it wasn't enough.

They were prepared for an attack. They weren't prepared for theft.

By the time they realise the true purpose behind the attack, it's already too late: they are standing in the smoking carcass of an alien ship, Vision's lifeless body between them. Wanda has sagged beside it, exhausted from the destructive outburst of her agony when she saw her beloved fall. Natasha has pulled her into a secure hold, slowly rocking the weeping girl against her chest. Natasha's eyes meet Thor's; neither of them knows what to say.

_He fell with honour._ The words are stuck in Thor's throat. In the past, he would have spoken them without a moment's hesitation, fully believing in the consolation he has always thought they offer. Now they taste like ash on his tongue.

“It seems safe to presume that these two were a distraction,” Strange says wearily and gestures at the two enormous bodies in the ruins of the ship – two of the self-proclaimed 'children'. They look somewhat alike, even for two of the same race. Perhaps they were kin.

“From what?” Banner asks. His gaze flits anxiously between the bodies, the ruins of the ship, and Vision. Perhaps he’s jittery from battle, or perhaps his restlessness has become a permanent state. He has seemed more on edge ever since the Statesman landed on Earth.

“From their true purpose.” Strange's face doesn't show much, stony as it is, but the unhappy tilt of his mouth reveals a hint of his regret and shame of failure. Thor understands it well.

“All right, enough teaser snippets. Speak clearly, wizard. What purpose?”

“The infinity stones,” someone says behind them. Thor turns around.

It's the cyborg woman. She emerged with Strange from the ruins of the ship on which Strange was abducted, but has so far remained silent. Apparently they have her to thank for having the sorcerer still alive, if wounded, in their midst; according to Strange, it was largely her influence that the ship crashed.

“Proxima is taking them to Thanos as we speak,” she continues. Her voice is strangely hoarse, perhaps due to alterations made to her body. Thor feels repressed anger emanate from her in strong waves even to where he’s standing. “We don't have much time.”

“Explain,” Natasha demands, still cradling Wanda against her. “What's going on? Who’s this Thanos?”

“My father. He’s collecting the Infinity stones to wipe out half of the life in the universe. He already has all but the ones you just lost, if Proxima can be believed.” The cyborg turns her blazing eyes towards Natasha, and even hardened as Natasha is, she shifts uncomfortably under the intense gaze. The cyborg’s lips pull back to a sneer.

“And now he has my sister.”


	4. Aftermath

After Nebula has finished, silence settles over the conference room of the Avengers tower.

It doesn't last long.

“Wow.” Stark rubs the bridge of his nose, squeezes his eyes shut and then reopens them, blinking at the rest of them as if asking if he heard correctly. “Great. Wonderful. So this time we have to deal with a crazy intergalactic megalomaniac who wants to off half the life in the universe. This just keeps getting better and better.”

“With the stones he can do it in a snap of his fingers,” Nebula says. Her face betrays no emotion that Thor can see, not even anger any longer. But her demeanour is tense, wound up like a wired spring. They way she talked about Thanos spoke of revenge, and Thor feels a pang of sympathy for her; her sister must be lost already. Now, it seems, all she has left to save are her companions who are apparently headed after Thanos, and half the universe.

Steve rubs his face with his hands. “And now he has them all? So he can be doing that any moment as we speak?”

“She meant all the stones but the space stone,” Thor repeats with growing impatience, because somehow they all _keep forgetting_. “The Tesseract was destroyed with Asgard.”

Nebula’s unsettling, unwavering gaze settles on Thor. She doesn’t say anything, but something in her look sends chills down Thor’s spine.

“Wait,” Banner interjects. “If the Tesseract was destroyed with Asgard, there's no way Thanos can fulfil his plan, right?”

“Unless,” Natasha says slowly, her gaze shifting to Thor, “the Tesseract wasn't destroyed.”

Thor’s temper flares at her implication. “Nothing could have survived Surtur's sword.”

“Thanos is still looking for something.”

The steady, even voice breaks the simmering argument. They all look to Heimdall, who has stayed silent since their meeting began and has now turned his heavy gaze on Thor. “Some _one_.”

Natasha and Steve exchange a look.

“Are you sure the Tesseract was destroyed?” Natasha asks Thor carefully, insistent. “It was last seen in Asgard. Thanos is still looking for a stone. And Loki has escaped.”

She speaks as though Loki was a prisoner, as though Thor kept him by force. As though it would have been better if he had.

Outside, the day darkens with restless clouds.

“If you have something to say, stop dancing around it and speak plainly _,_ ” Thor snarls.

Natasha does. “Thor. We’ve got enough to draw certain conclusions about your brother and the Tesseract.”

Thor bites his teeth together so hard his jaw hurts. Loki's name has long been swallowed down in his presence, and now they are bringing it up with the worst implications. Inside him, nausea mixes with anger and rises like bile in his throat. He clenches his teeth harder.

“Nat is right.” Banner looks at him with sympathy. “I'm sorry man.”

A hand lands on Thor's shoulder, squeezes firmly, presses down hard; Thor didn't realise he was standing up from his seat.

“On the bright side,” Steve says, his grip on Thor’s shoulder like an anchor. “If Thanos is still looking, it means Loki hasn't taken the Tesseract to him.”

“And on the less bright side, we also know what’s going to be Thanos' next step,” Stark says grimly. “I mean, no offence, but Loki being the last guy between Thanos and his snap? Yeah. Doesn't fill me with confidence.”

Thunder rumbles in the distance. Steve's hold on Thor's shoulder tightens.

Natasha's gaze flits to the window and back. “Guess we know _our_ next step, too,” she says lightly.

All the eyes turn to Thor, every single one. As if Thor had an answer. As if Thor knew where to look.

“I don't know where he is.” It’s a struggle to push the words out; his tongue is too dry, his throat too tight for them. He feels he might vomit.

“He has cloaked himself from my gaze,” Heimdall says, ever the calm presence in spite of Thor's inner turmoil. “But I see another black general, recently departed from Thanos' ship. If Thanos sent his generals to retrieve the stones from Earth, perhaps this one has a similar mission.”

“Loki.”

It comes out hoarse, unpractised. It's the first time Thor has uttered his brother’s name after his departure.

Heimdall nods to him slowly. “If we follow him, we have a chance of finding Loki. If we're lucky.”

“Great, great,” Stark mutters. “That’s a lot of ifs we’re working with.”

He stands up with a clap of his hands. “Down to business then. Who here has a spaceship?”


	5. Adrift

Two of the planet’s three moons have sunken beyond the horizon by the time Loki wakes in the cabin of the ship that he borrowed without explicit permission somewhere of no significance, some two weeks earlier.

It's the fourth dawn he is to greet on that bare little rock of a planet; he has run out of fuel, and the rock he’s landed on is so far from the star it orbits that charging the ship with solar energy is going to take at least a few more days.

It's no matter. It's not like Loki has anywhere to be, anyway.

He abandoned the Commodore two days after he left on it. He has no idea if it can be tracked from the Statesman, or, worse, if the Grandmaster has means to track it even from Sakaar, but that possibility is not something Loki is willing to risk.

Not that he has reason to believe that anyone will come after him. Not that he expected Thor to, even if the Commodore were traceable. After all, Thor made his stance perfectly clear on Sakaar. A stance he has evidently kept; it has been… what, now? Weeks? Months, since Loki left, and Thor has not yet followed. Which is what they both want, which is why Loki cloaked himself from Heimdall's gaze to begin with. Still, it's good to be cautious. One never knows – maybe Thor's mortals manage to convince him that they are all better off with Loki locked up somewhere.

Or maybe Loki is just being wistful.

He has been everywhere and nowhere in the past few months since he left the Statesman. He has travelled from planet to planet, from one galaxy to another. He hasn't used the Tesseract once – he doesn't need to attract any more unwanted attention than he is bound to have done already. He has hidden beneath different illusions, blended in in some of the seediest establishments the universe has to offer (Sakaar excluded), taken off whenever he has begun to get tangled in his careless little webs of cheating and lies, choosing another destination at random, sometimes reaching it, often ending up elsewhere. And all over does the circle begin: another new face, another gamble, another eventual flight. He has at times retreated to an empty asteroid or a dead little planet when things have got overwhelming, but he cannot stay alone with himself for too long these days. Too many thoughts, too many regrets, too many tempting illusions to lose himself into.

It has taken conscious effort to pull himself back from his woven little fantasies, lately. But every time Loki feels he’s starting to slip a little too deep into his illusions, he’s reminded of Mother, of her kind and loving face, gentle even in sorrow. It's always her heartbroken smile – her last one for him – that shatters the false world around him and drops him back into this dreary, numbing reality.

She is gone – Loki knows that, knows that it's no longer even possible to let her down. And yet, that sentimental, pathetic little notion – that he would disappoint her, again, should he let himself slip – still holds him back. It's ridiculous, he knows it, but he can't help it.

His eyes slip shut. Unthinkingly, he begins to weave an illusion around himself. A memory, one that he has been revisiting far to frequently of late. It’s the moment on the Statesman, when Thor put his arms around Loki in a tight embrace. Thor's lips were on his forehead; Thor's tears on his cheek, but only on the right side. Loki's palm over Thor's heart, and his promise – _I'_ _m_ _here_ – sincere on Thor’s lips.

 _You're incapable of sincerity,_ Thor told him on that fateful night of his failed coronation. In the short weeks on the Statesman, Loki managed to convince himself that Thor no longer believed that. _I wish I could trust you_ , were Thor’s words to him from another time, and Loki, falsely, took it as a promise that one day Thor might.

But Loki has ever been the fool, hasn’t he? Right from the very beginning, right until the end, when he still thought he might have a place beside his brother.

He opens his eyes. The third moon of the planet has finally fallen, too. The faraway sun is rising, its light distant and cold, and strangely bright.

Loki frowns. The sunrise seems different than before, the light stronger than Loki has yet seen, as if reinforced, as if reflecting from -

A spacecraft. The light is reflecting from sharp, steely walls of a spacecraft rising from behind the horizon along with the sun. A spacecraft Loki has become painfully, intimately acquainted with in the past.

 _Fool_.

 _No barren moon,_ the Other told him, years ago. And as Loki watches Maw's ship loom over the horizon of his pathetic little planet, he knows the time he has stolen is up.


	6. Again

_Down, down, down. Thor rushes the stairs in a turbulent blur. Let it not be so. Oh, Norns, let it not be -_

_He halts in front of the door, hand hovering over the lock panel. He doesn't want to see. He doesn't want to be right. He doesn't, doesn't, not again--_

_His heart beats thunder in his ears. He touches the panel; the door slides open._

_The Commodore is gone._

Thor sits quietly on his seat in one of the shuttles they had on the Statesman, and stares out of the window. The stars and galaxies blur as Nebula guides their compact ship through a series of worm holes, but Thor registers nothing of it. Before his eye, he only sees Loki's empty cabin and the platform where the Commodore used to rest.

_I'm here,_ Loki said. But he left, anyway. Like he always has, one way or another. Lately, in the past few years, it has felt as though every time Thor reaches for Loki, all he finds is an empty space where his brother should have been.

It became worse, in those short and, strangely, simultaneously long weeks on the Statesman. I'm here, Loki said, but every morning Thor woke up to a foreboding fear of Loki having gone during the night and leaving only emptiness behind. Emptiness – or worse, his illusions, so that when Thor would reach to touch him, his hand would find nothing but air.

That fear took a hold of him during those restless weeks. He could not rid himself of it even when Loki was standing beside him on the bridge, staring wordlessly into the vastness of cosmos. The fear of losing Loki – of having already lost him – made him both hesitate and crave to touch him, to rest his hand on his neck, to ask that he share Thor's cabin even for a night. As brothers and as lovers, so they could properly talk like they used to until that damned day of Thor's failed coronation, when everything went awry.

He never did muster the courage. Loki could have said no – probably would have, considering that he did leave in the end – but at least the volatile topic of the shape of their past and future relationship would have been breached.

But Thor didn’t ask, and so he spent his nights alone. The aching lack of his brother at his side invited the nightmares instead, the ones in which he chases his brother, but Loki keeps dancing away, away, out of his reach, slipping through Thor’s fingers – until Thor finally catches up with him, only for his arms to close around nothing; Loki is gone, or perhaps he never was there to begin with, and Thor only followed an illusion.

That fear from the nightmares always lingered far into the next day, gnawing at Thor’s heart, weighting on his soul. What if, it would whisper, what if…

Thor still has those dreams, sometimes, even as he no longer has Loki. Are they premonitions, like his dreams of Ragnarök? But if so, why continue plaguing him now that Loki has long since left him? Or are they a self-fulfilling prophesy – the closer he gets to his brother, the further he pushes him away?

Or perhaps no prophesy or premonition can bind Loki, and Loki simply left. Perhaps it was his intention right from the start. Why else would he have taken the Tesseract, and kept it secret from Thor? When he breathed his sweet assurances against the corner of Thor’s mouth on that first night on the Statesman, was he all the while weighing the Tesseract behind his back, only biding his time?

_I’m here._

Thor closes his eye. If only Loki hadn’t lied about that. Of all the lies, not about _that._

But it was Loki's choice, and Thor has-- not made peace with it, but he has accepted it. He has let Loki go. He hasn’t looked, hasn’t even asked Heimdall to look, not after that first time. It was Loki's choice, and Loki made it; Thor will not go after him.

He decided that. And yet here he is, once again running after his brother.

No. Not after Loki. Loki chose to go. This is about the Tesseract, and Thanos, and nothing else.

And nothing else.

He opens his eye, catches his reflection on the window. The black patch is staring at him where his left eye used to be.

In his dreams, he always has both eyes; it’s upon waking that he’s reminded again that he only has the one now. That there’s no restoring the irreplaceable.

He turns away from the window.

On the seat beside him, Heimdall, previously resting, suddenly jolts from his quiet, contemplative state. His golden eyes slowly focus, and, without prompting, he turns to Thor.

Thor can’t help it. Worry pulls at his heart. His resolution is instantly forgotten.

He asks.

“What do you see?”

Heimdall regards him silently for a moment, as if considering what he should tell him. Thor knows, _knows_ what he will say, but still, when Heimdall speaks, Thor is not prepared to hear it.

“Loki.”


	7. At last

Loki remembers Maw, from before. Of all of Thanos' minions, it was Maw whose visits Loki hated, and dreaded, the most. With Maw Loki was never sure where reality ended and illusions began. The more Loki struggled, the more breaking hurt – and, in the end, Loki had ceased trying. From his delirium Maw had pieced together enough to outline Loki's main pressure points.

Even back then, Loki was aware that the power of Maw's particular brand of torture lay in the weakness of Loki's own mind, in his pathetic hopes and dreams that fed and reinforced Maw's sadistic imagination. It was part of the cruelty – that Loki, who has an affinity for illusions, did most of the destruction himself. Maw only fuelled and directed it. It used to anger Loki further, and for that, too, he blamed Thor. Blamed him for Loki wanting him there, and blamed him for not being there, not really. Blamed him for making Loki believe that he was, right until Loki reached for him and found not Thor, but a form of glowing-red spikes.

Loki used to blame Thor for a lot of things, then.

He doesn't, now. Not for this, anyway. He knows perfectly well that the weakness of his mind and heart both is his own.

Thor turns to him, puts the bottle stopper down on the little table. _If you were here, I might_ _even_ _give you a hug._

_How do you know I'm not?_

_I know you, brother._ And Thor turns away, and leaves Loki again, again, aga-

 _No_.

Loki shatters the illusion with a snarl.

This is a memory even Maw can't taint. This is Loki's most guarded, most revisited recollection, even more cherished for being so recent. It isn't an echo of some distant affection from their childhood, nor the hungry touches from their early adulthood. No – this moment happened after everything went awry in their lives, after everything-- and Thor still opened his arms for Loki.

He remembers the hug. He always remembers the hug, and even Maw can't take that from him, not that one, blessed moment of slotting back into Thor's arms, of belonging, for however short a time. Everything clicked into place right then. Everything was-- everything was right, for a little while.

Maw will _not_ take that from him.

“No new tricks, Maw?” Loki pants, summons his daggers. “You know, I learnt this fascinating saying on Midgard about teaching new tricks to old dogs.”

“Ever the unruly child,” Maw responds with almost parental disappointment on his face. “You never grew to understand your place in the greater schemes of the universe, Loki Laufeyson.”

Loki flings his daggers.

For once, he has an advantage: his fight is to death, but Maw cannot kill him, or the Tesseract will be lost from Thanos forever.

That doesn't mean it’s painless. Maw has a lot of experience with making his enemies bleed without the gift of a swift death, and he has a lot of experience with Loki. He knows, too well, how to distract only to dig in deep.

 _Give_ _it to_ _me, Loki,_ Thor says, commands, eyes hard, hand outstretched, waiting. _If you wish to call me brother, g_ _ive me the Tesseract._

“You want the Tesseract?” Loki wheezes, pulls himself into a sitting position against his ship where Maw’s attack has flung him, pressing his hand against the fresh gash in his side. With a wince he lifts his other palm, and summons a glowing blue cube out of his pocket dimension.

Maw tilts his head with a slight frown.

Loki smirks at him. “You won’t have it.”

A cry of outrage is all that Maw has time for when Loki unleashes the roaring power of the Casket of Ancient Winters upon him.

.

It's with difficulty that Loki hauls himself back into the cabin of his ship. The fight has drained him; he is vaguely aware that the specific spell hiding him from Heimdall has waned, but he doesn't even try to renew it. It won't make a difference, at this point. Even if Thor decided to take the chance to reach him – which is doubtful in itself, but Loki has always clung to false hopes, hasn't he? – the fact that Maw found him means that Thanos knows his whereabouts, too. It won't take long for Thanos to realise Maw won't be returning. It won't take long for him to come after Loki himself. Even if Thor did decide to reach Loki, by the time he would find this dead little rock of a planet Thanos would have come and gone already.

Loki plops into the pilot’s seat, sagging into it completely. He tips his head back, his breaths coming out in little shallow pants. Some inner need urges him to fill his lungs with air, but whenever he tries, pain spears his side and radiates into every limb. The gash there is oozing blood, but Loki can’t make himself weave the threads of healing seidr into the wound.

Why bother? Thanos will come for him soon. He will be enraged, when Loki won't yield him the Tesseract. It will hurt anyway. Besides, what has Loki left to fight for? Or even, to survive for? He has been living on borrowed time anyway.

At least it will finally end, if a thousand years too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey you lovely readers! I know it has been angsty chapter after angsty chapter, but -SPOILER- at least the brothers reunite soon and in the end, your suffering pays off (I hope). That doesn't mean the angst has run dry, but there is hope to be had, if you just bear with me.
> 
> Thank you for making it this far and for leaving your precious comments. <3 You are all priceless.


	8. Awaited

They land in range of sight of Loki's ship. So that Loki would not feel trapped, but instead see their approach openly, as per Heimdall's discreet suggestion. If it were up to Thor, they would have landed as close as possible so it wouldn't have taken more than a breath's time for Thor to cross from their ship to Loki's. But he listens to Heimdall in this.

“Thanos will be here soon,” Heimdall warns him as Thor disembarks without so much as a word.

“Less time for him to live,” Thor growls, and does not linger to hear – or see – Heimdall's reaction. He isn't much concerned about this Thanos, not with the six of them – seven, if Loki is counted. He knows his friends can and will hold their own in battle. For now, his only concern is for his brother.

Loki's ship rests lifelessly among the rocks, as if it were sleeping. Not far from it lies a husk of a much larger spacecraft, its sides torn by thick, icy spears that seem to grow from within the husk. There are signs of a bitter battle fought everywhere around the two ships.

A battle that Loki won, Thor has to remind himself. That Loki survived, no matter how dead his little ship looks. Heimdall saw him, saw that he lives, that he's safely inside, breathing, if wounded. No matter how frozen in time the scene around appears, Loki is alive.

It takes Thor all his self-restrain to find the hatch to the ship instead of simply bashing right through the window; the only thought stopping him from the latter option is that he can't see through the reflective glass, so he could accidentally hurt Loki. He doesn't have the same patience with the hatch, though – when it refuses to slide open even as he presses the panel (yes, _gently!_ ), he simply wrenches it open by force. Loki will no longer need this lump of scraps masquerading as a spacecraft, anyway.

The ship is even smaller on the inside than it seemed from the outside. Thor heads directly into the piloting cabin, hunching his shoulders to fit through the narrow passage.

By the entrance, his strides stutter into a halt.

Loki lies curled on his side in the piloting seat. Little breaths, though shallow, nevertheless move his chest in a steady rhythm of rise and fall. His face is pale, but not in the elegant, aristocratic shade familiar to Thor – it's an ashen grey instead. He is wearing the leathers Thor last saw him in, back on the Statesman, but they have evidently seen better days; they are worn and frayed at the seams, the cape noticeably tattered. There is blood all over Loki's middle section, and Thor catches a light, barely-there glow around Loki's hand that rests over his side, covering a tear in his clothes. His eyes are slightly sunken, and closed. He looks like he's sleeping.

It's the first time in months that Thor sees him.

He stands at the threshold, unable to move, unable to reach out. His throat is working, but it's too dry to make a sound; he can barely even swallow. Loki is breathing, but Thor can't shake off the sudden dread that he has come too late after all.

His feet take him further into the cabin without him giving them the order to. One, two steps. Three, and he stands before Loki's seat. From the front window he sees Heimdall and his companions taking in their surroundings. Not that there's much to see, here; the rock they've landed on is cold and bare like an awaiting tomb.

He shakes his head. Looks down at Loki – and, startlingly, meets Loki's eyes. Green, so familiar, but now so dull and lightless. Like Loki were far away, and Thor only had his fragile shell to look at.

Thor had many things planned that he would say to Loki, should they meet again. During those long, endless months without his brother, Thor fell asleep every night to imaginary confrontations with his brother, alternating between fabricating long and passionate speeches and coming up with curt and bland responses. When he learnt that Loki has the Tesseract, he began planning outright verses with which to confront his brother, all laden with anger, disappointment, hurt. But now, with Loki finally before him – for real, and not in dream – all words dry up and crumble into dust. All, save for one.

“Brother.”

Loki's eyes flutter shut. “Ah,” he sighs softly, as if to himself. “So it's finally happening.”

Thor, by no conscious decision, lowers himself to his knees beside his brother, taking in the sight of him, eyeing the wound in his side. At least it's no longer bleeding – Loki must have healed himself.

“What is?” he asks a little absently, wondering if he should inspect the wound. In the past, he would have reached for it without a doubt. Now, he finds himself uncertain.

But Loki only waves at him lazily, apparently settling back into his slumber. “Ah, Thor. Begone.”

Thor's hand, already hovering above the wound, stills.

 _Begone_. They have not seen each other in months, and this is Loki's response to him. Begone.

Thor bites his teeth, hard. Swallows against the rising disappointment in his throat. Pulls his hand back, clenches it into a fist on his thigh.

Begone.

Very well. He came here with an objective, anyway.

He steels his hurt, his anger, and takes a deep breath before speaking again.

“Where is the Tesseract? Tell me, and I will.”

Loki's lips curl into a brittle smile. His eyes remain closed. “First things first as usual, I see. Always right with the priorities, brother.”

He shuffles deeper into the seat, with his face turned into his shoulder, so that his next words come out mumbled. “You could at least pretend to care.”

Thor's jaw almost drops. “Pretend to care?” His vision momentarily flashes white in a whiplash of emotion. “ _Pretend to care?_ ” He grits his teeth. “Some cheek you have to tell me that. I ask you again, brother: Where. Is. The Tesseract?”

When the blinding anger dissipates from his sight, he sees Loki's eyes wide open and staring at him. The haze in them has evaporated.

“Thor?” Loki stammers, attempting to sit up properly, but wincing and slumping down again. “You're-- you're here?”

Thor's anger retreats further at the sight of his brother's pain, and the shock in his voice seems so genuine that it throws Thor off the course somewhat.

“Of course I'm here.” He wants to add that he is not like Loki, who so often has haunted Thor's dreams and used illusions to fake his presence, but the panic that fills Loki's eyes makes him bite his tongue.

Loki stares at him like he has seen a ghost, and then sags in his chair, closing his eyes once more.

Thor frowns. “Loki?”

Loki's lips move, and Thor has to lean a little bit closer to hear what he is saying, distracted by the now visible wound beneath the tear in Loki's leathers. It seems Loki hasn't closed the wound after all.

He is about to turn to his brother, when a massive shadow catches his attention through the window. An enormous ship has crept into his line of sight, covering half the sky behind it. Outside, Heimdall and their companions are gathering together, faces tilted up, tension in their postures.

It must be Thanos.

Loki's eyes are open and staring numbly at the ship, when Thor turns back to him. He almost staggers at the sight of his brother. Loki looks so… defeated.

Belatedly, Loki's quiet words register in his brain:

“You shouldn't have come.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, I'm back. Took a moment, but here we are with the reunion! Thanks to everyone who's still with me. <3


	9. Aligned

Loki follows Thor out despite Thor's increasingly emphatic request that he stay put.

“You are already wounded, I will not -”

“If I don't go to him, he will come to me,” Loki snaps at him, wasting what little magical energy he has on casting an illusion over his tattered attire and the wound. “Allow me some dignity.”

“He won't if we stop him,” Thor insists, but of no avail. Loki's head, while it's set on something, will not be turned, and they cannot waste any more time bickering; Thanos' ship has landed.

Their friends stand in a tight line, tense, waiting, when Thor and Loki join them. Heimdall stands slightly ahead of the others, Steve and Natasha beside him. In line with Steve stands Stark, and half a step ahead of him, Nebula. They all spare a brief glance at Thor and Loki as they join them.

“Oh, good, look who's here,” Stark quips, attempting and failing at lightness of tone.

“My Prince,” Heimdall says with a nod, neutral as only he can. His all-seeing eyes seems to scan Loki from head to toe. “Good to see you in... good health.”

“Heimdall,” Loki greets tightly, but his eyes are caught on Nebula. Thor is surprised to see them both exchange a silent nod. He will have to ask Loki about it later. Once Thanos is done for.

“Right on time,” Natasha mutters, as an entrance opens in the side of Thanos’ ship and two figures step out. The big and ugly one can be none but Thanos, and Thor recognises the woman behind him as the one who stole the stones from Vision and Strange – Proxima Midnight, Nebula called her. She has succeeded in taking the stones to Thanos, then.

Loki, by Thor's side, squares his shoulders. His eyes are glued on Thanos, his face a sickening shade of grey, his lips a line so thin they are almost white. Loki has never told of what happened to him in the clutches of the Mad Titan, but, seeing his raw fear – and yet seeing him face it so proudly – Thor instantly resolves to deliver Thanos' death so slowly and painfully that, in the end of it, the titan will beg for it on his knees.

 _Breathe, Thor._ It won't do to enter the battle blinded by vengeance. It won't do to risk any mistakes. Not now.

He clasps Heimdall's shoulder, gives it a meaningful squeeze with a subtle glance in Loki's direction. _Protect him._

Heimdall follows his gaze and inclines his head in a minute acknowledgement. _With my life, my King._

Thanos halts. The gauntlet glimmers on his hand, the colourful selection of the infinity stones glowing faintly. But one slot is yet empty.

“Ah. The last pathetic little hiccup hindering me from reaching my goal.”

Thanos' voice is placid, almost bored. He doesn't seem to doubt his success. His eyes move over them all and halt on someone – Nebula. “So you disappoint me, again.”

Loki shifts beside Thor; Thor swallows the sudden urge to take his hand and squeeze it in reassurance. Instead he looks at Nebula.

Raw hatred along with something complicated radiates from her face. Her hands, tight fists, are shaking. “You have the soul stone,” is how she responds, with visible effort.

To Thor's surprise, Thanos' expression softens in something that looks like grief – if that can be said of a madman who is ready to destroy the known universe. “Yes,” Thanos says, lowering his eyes to the gauntlet. “I have the soul stone.”

Nebula snarls and lunges at him.

The battle begins suddenly and unanimously. The moment the rest of them charge at Thanos and his last general, multiple hatches open in the board of Thanos' ship, and his minions begin pouring out like insects.

“Shit!” Thor hears Stark yell, and from the corner of his eye he catches a red suit flashing past them. “Give me a hand, someone!”

“A little busy!” Natasha shouts. She has engaged Thanos' general, and, to Thor's relief, Heimdall has gone to her aid.

“Thor!” Loki yells, and in the millisecond it takes Thor to whip his face to Loki’s direction, his stomach lurches in fear. But Loki is fine – he stands a few steps behind Thor. “Hit them with your lightning!”

Thor turns to Thanos just in time to see him block Nebula's attack and toss Steve aside. At one of the ship's hatches, Stark shoots an explosion.

“But-!”

“Just do it! Your lightning can fry half of them at once! I'll take care of the rest.”

Thor doesn't waste more time – he calls for the storm inside him, and releases it at the nearest lines of the approaching minions. They have no chance against his lightning, and, despite himself, Thor laughs. He has yet to explore this newfound potential of his thrumming powers in full, but he's beginning to realise that while Mjölnir channelled his lightning, she also, inadvertently, held him back. Every channel is its own limit – and now, Thor's only limit is himself.

Which is to say, there isn’t much of a limit at all.

A blue flash in the corner of his eye draws his attention to Loki, just in time to see a blue cube materialise his hands. The Casket.

He looks up and finds Loki's gaze on himself, catches the little smug grin on Loki's lips – and something heavy that has been weighting down on his chest for months suddenly lifts and shatters, the lightness it leaves behind momentarily stunning him.

“You trickster!” he throws at Loki, and-- laughs.

“Always, brother,” Loki quips back at him with a much more controlled smile, but there's a glint in his eyes that Thor has missed – oh, how he has missed--

But they are on a battlefield now, with an enemy more dangerous than any they’ve encountered before. The flash of the Casket has clearly also caught Thanos' attention.

He throws off Steve and blocks Nebula's attack with his enormous double-edged sword, eyes now on Loki.

“I believe you have something of mine, trickster.”

Loki turns to Thor, all mischief gone from his eyes. “Keep him off me,” he says, and dashes towards Thanos' ship and the approaching screaming army.

Natasha sprints after him, and Thor looks to Thanos just in time to see him barely dodge a slash of Heimdall's sword; Proxima Midnight lies dead in a pool of blood behind them.

“You can struggle as much as you like,” Thanos bellows, his calm finally crumbling and irritation seeping through the cracks. “But you cannot stop the natural order. All your pathetic struggling will be in vain.”

“You speak like you're above it,” Steve snarls, wiping blood from his split lip, chest heaving for breath.

“He thinks he is,” Nebula hisses, standing ready with dual blades in her hands. One of them is tinted with red, but there are no visible wounds on the titan.

“I am,” Thanos says, to Nebula. “You should know it better than anyone.”

“No being is above the laws of the universe,” Heimdall says. He, too, looks battered; his leather armour has a tear in it, and a wound on his bare arm is oozing blood. “Not even those who fancy themselves gods.”

His words echo in Thor's chest. In the past, at the hight of his hubris, he would have challenged them as nonsense – but during the past months, years, even, he has learnt the truth in them the hard way. Perhaps he only began realising it while watching his mother's boat disappear in darkness, her soul joining eternity, and now, when all he has believed a constant in his life has crumbled, he has finally truly understood it. But that is why he will fight even harder to preserve what still is possible to save.

From the corner if his eye he sees flashes of explosions and blue ice magic, but the number of Thanos’ minions doesn't seem to be diminishing. They must defeat Thanos quickly, to be able to scatter his army.

“Big words,” he throws at Thanos, feeling electricity crackling and thrumming in his hands – his lightning sings in his veins and in his every nerve. He grins. “Heard bigger.”

Thanos opens his mouth to respond, but he doesn't get a sound out before Thor is upon him. His charged fist collides with Thanos' jaw, and the impact throws the titan back.

“Go aid your friends, Captain!” Thor hears Heimdall shout, and, with Steve out of the way, he releases the power that has been waiting at his fingertips, willing to be unleashed.

Thanos counters the blast with his gauntlet, managing to absorb some of it, but he still staggers when he gets up, gasping for breath.

Thor is about to unleash another attack, when Thanos' expression changes into a malicious smile. He raises his sword as if to strike, but in the last moment hurls it not at Thor, but just past him. Thor is about to return the attack, when Heimdall's voice shatters his blood lust.

“Loki!”

Thor's breath stutters. He whirls around in time to see Loki barely evading Thanos' sword, but his relief is short-lived; Loki stumbles, and collapses on the ground. The Casket falls from his hands and into dust, its blue light dimmed.

Before Thor knows what he is doing, he’s already dashing in Loki's direction. What a fool he was, to let his attention slip from his brother! Loki was already severely wounded before the fight even started, his magical energy already nearly drained – and yet he handled the Casket and entered the battle regardless. All around him are frozen spikes and heaps of dead enemies, and half of Thanos' ship is covered in the everlasting ice of Jotunheim. But Loki himself is barely pushing himself up on to his knees, evidently fighting to get on his feet. What was Thor even thinking? He shouldn't have abandoned his brother's side, not now, not when he just got him back.

Loki turns his face to Thor, and his eyes widen in panic. “Thor-!”

And in the next moment Thor feels it – the blinding pain that suddenly seizes his mind. He hears a scream – he doesn't know whose – and doubles over, vision flashing in colourful, agonising lights that drill into his mind, deeper, deeper, deeper, until nothing but pain remains, until nothing but dark and light and agony surround him from all directions, until there is no air in his lungs, until all he knows is screams.

And then, it ends. The sudden lack of pain is so abrupt that it almost hurts, and it leaves Thor reeling and gasping for breath. When his vision clears somewhat, the first thing he sees is his brother’s sheet-white face, eyes wide and sad and terrified.

Beside Loki stands Heimdall, and Nebula is nearing his side. Heimdall looks like he is ready to lunge. “Release him,” he says in a steady voice, but Thor can see his golden eyes blaze with fury and- fear. Heimdall is _afraid_. Why is Heimdall afraid?

The pain, though no longer as agonizing, begins slithering in every crack of Thor’s mind, pulsing in every nerve of his body. He frowns – he cannot understand – but Loki, Loki is there, pale and ashen but safe so it's all fine. Thor will just… go to him…

His body doesn't move. Why doesn’t it move?

“I will repeat myself once,” someone says through the ringing in Thor's ears, and that hateful voice is what finally brings some clarity through the haze in his mind. “You have something of mine, trickster, and it's time that you returned it to me. But I'm not unreasonable. I'll give you a choice.”

The pressure around Thor's head intensifies, and he grinds his teeth together to keep his scream inside. He will not give Thanos that satisfaction. He will not bring Loki that pain.

And then he realises that he already has.

“The Tesseract,” Thanos says. “Or your brother's head.”

His’ voice has regained its self-assured placidity. Helpless fury rises in Thor’s veins.

Loki…

Loki is trying to appear calm, but Thor can see the uneven rise and fall of his chest, the panicked way his eyes flit from Thor to Thanos. _Loki. Loki, Loki, Loki. What have I done to you._

Evidently, Loki’s silence has lasted for too long; searing pain shoots through Thor’s head, too sudden for him to bite back his shout. Loki flinches, and Thor can hear the malicious amusement in Thanos’ voice.

“I assume you have a preference.”

Heimdall turns to Loki, eyes pained and serious and frantic, in a way Heimdall has never been. His voice is hard. “My Prince.”

Thor tries to catch Loki's eyes – tries to signal him that’s it’s all right, that if Thor’s life is the price for keeping Thanos from his goal, Thor will be glad to pay it. But Loki has fixed his eyes on Thanos only.

“My Prince _,_ ” Heimdall repeats, with more urgency.

Slowly, so slowly Loki's eyes finally slide to Thor, and the sorrow Thor sees in them strikes him somewhere far deeper than the pain of the gauntlet.

“Oh, Thor,” Loki says, and the regret in his voice cuts like a knife. “If only you had stayed away.”

Then he raises his hand, and this time the blue glow that begins materializing comes not from the Casket.

 _No,_ Thor tries to shout, but he can't, he can't form any words, and so he just shouts.

“Loki of Asgard,” Thanos says. The smile in his voice is unmistakeable. “You have always been predictable, when it comes to your brother.”

Loki takes a step forward. The Tesseract now rests on his palm, radiating power. “Release him.”

Thanos extends his hand to Loki, palm up. “The Tesseract first.”

 _Loki_ , Thor thinks with all he has, so helpless, helpless, helpless. _Loki. No. No. No-_

Loki extends his hand until it hovers above Thanos’ waiting palm. His eyes find Thor. “I’m sorry.”

The he tilts his hand, and the Tesseract falls -

Right past Thanos' upturned palm.

 _Puft_ , it says as it hits the dirt, raising a little cloud of dust from the impact.

Loki raises his eyes to Thanos' and quirks his brow. “Dear me. Terribly sorry.”

For a few stunned seconds, nobody moves. Time itself seems to stretch out and stop, stunned by Loki’s sheer _audacity._

It takes Thanos aback, too, and for one fleeting, crucial moment, his grip around Thor’s head loosens.

It’s just for a second, barely a breath, but it’s clearly what Loki was waiting for. Quick as a snake that has been poising for attack, he lunges – and the frozen moment shatters.

From there, everything happens in a whirlwind. Loki collides with Thor, knocking the wind out of his lungs. The world tips over – they are in the air, and a deadly flash of steel passes just behind Loki’s back – and they’re spinning, and suddenly there’s dirt and blood and Loki’s hair in Thor’s mouth. He has barely time to realise that he’s lying on top of Loki on the ground – that Loki spun them in the air to take the impact of the fall – before Loki rolls them again and all Thor can see is his brother’s heaving chest, his arms curled around Thor in a protective shell.

Loki, he tries to say, but only manages a painful wheeze. Loki hears him regardless, and looks down. For one precious moment, Thor can see every unsaid emotion between them in Loki’s eyes – and then Loki is rolling away and clambering on his feet, looking away.

Thor pushes himself onto his elbows and looks around. Nearest to him stands Heimdall, leaning heavily on his sword. At his feet lies a hand, severed from its body, the gauntlet still sitting around it. Nebula is kneeling on the ground behind Heimdall, near motionless; her blades are hanging limply in her hands, both edges red with blood. Before her in the dirt lies Thanos – or, rather, his headless corpse. The titan’s severed head has rolled further away, face nearly unrecognisable beneath all the dirt sticking to the blood; the corpse’s still-attached hand rests right beside the Tesseract in dirt.

Thor’s ears ring with the silence that has stretched between the four of them. He pushes himself into a sitting position; Heimdall steps in to pull him up, steadying him when he sways. None of them seems to find any words. Despite the dead body lying in three parts on the ground before them, their victory feels almost too sudden, too unreal.

Heimdall crouches to pick up the gauntlet and the Tesseract. “Well -”

A boom of an explosion interrupts whatever he meant to say, and they all turn to look at Thanos’ ship. The titan’s minions – what’s left of them – scurry around like insects indeed, while the enormous ship is beginning to shake with smaller and bigger explosions. They seem to form a chain, starting from one end of the ship and making their way towards the other.

A flash of red sticks out from the chaos, approaching them fast – Stark, with both Steve and Natasha clinging to him.

“Well they seem to be in a hurry,” Loki comments flippantly, as if the biggest damn ship they’ve ever seen wasn’t currently blowing up to pieces right before them.

“I think -” Heimdall begins, but is once again interrupted, this time by Stark landing right in their middle.

“Good news and bad news,” Stark announces without preamble, his helm sliding open. “Good news is that that big ugly ship is going to pieces in about fifteen minutes.”

“And the bad news is that _we_ are going to pieces with it,” Natasha speaks over him with a far greater urgency. “So _we’d better run fast._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm looking at the word count of this chapter (~2900) and sparing a moment of silence for my past self, who, in the beginning of this fic, actually naively believd that the chapters would be 500 words at MOST. But, well, such is life, and besides, I didn't want to cut the fight scene in two - writing fight scenes is the worst that I can imagine, and I want to be done with it already.
> 
> That said, I _am_ quite happy with this chapter, and I hope you'll like it too. There shouldn't be all that many more left, either; we're getting there, guys!
> 
> Thank you for reading. <3


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